The Dark Corner app is creating a new distribution channel for immersive horror experiences and 360-degree videos. Guy Shelmerdine and Teal Greyhavens are hoping that fans of the horror genre will be enthusiastic enough about the potential of VR to achieve new depths of terror that audiences will be willing to pay for 360 video experiences. Shelmerdine is featuring Dark Corner’s own creations including Catatonic and their latest nightmare-inspired Night Night, but also opening up a new marketplace for creators of horror content to sell and distribute their content.
I had a chance to catch up with Shelmerdine and Greyhavens to talk about their journey from comedy into VR horror, how VR horror experiences have gone viral because of reaction videos, the new distribution channel they’re creating, and the storytelling components that make up a great horror experience.
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Here’s an example of a reaction video that helps these types of experiences spread virally.
Lots of VR horror experiences have gone viral because of reaction videos like this one. @DarkCornerVR hopes to become a distribution channel pic.twitter.com/jiLDvD2V7G
— Kent Bye (Voices of VR) (@kentbye) October 31, 2017
The horror genre also inspires people to look at their deepest fears, and to face their own mortality in a safe context. I believe that there are unknown thresholds of where an experience has been taken too far, and that it’s possible that VR experiences could generate new trauma in people. Shelmerdine and Greyhavens said that they haven’t seen this happen yet, but they’re also showing their experiences within a context where the reactions of other people make it clear what they might be getting into. There are ethical considerations of disclosing to someone the nature of content before they immerse themselves into a horror experience, and so receiving full consent is a responsibility for VR enthusiasts who are sharing this content with each other.
The depth of visceral emotions and embodied reactions from a VR horror experience go beyond what’s possible in any other medium. I’ve seen how these experiences that push the boundaries have inspired people to recreate traumatic experiences they’ve been through in order to find new ways of coping and generating new narratives about their trauma, which has yielding some surprising therapeutic and cathartic results. While I’m personally more interested in the pro-social applications of VR, I can see how exploring darkness, mortality, and your deepest fears in VR can not only be wildly entertaining for some people, but also perhaps the most vital types of experiences that they need on a deeper level. There are deep risks to flooding your body and psyche with nightmare imagery, but it’s also possible to have radical breakthroughs that would’ve never been possible before.
You can download the Dark Corners app is available on Gear VR, Oculus Rift, Daydream, Android and iOS.
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Music: Fatality
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to The Voices of VR Podcast. So today is Halloween, October 31st, 2017, and I'm going to be exploring the horror genre, death and fear, and the value of having these experiences within virtual reality. So Guy Chamardin and Teal Greyheavens, they got into virtual reality. Their first piece was Catatonic, which was released on Within. And they have since decided to continue to create other horror experiences and create this app called Dark Corners that is curating these types of horror experiences that you can purchase. So they're independent creators that have created their own self-distribution mechanism through this app. in order to sell their own experiences but also curate and sell other horror experiences. So I have a chance to talk to both Guy and Teal about their Dark Corner Studios and some of the projects they're working on as well as this application that is curating these different horror experiences and why people want to have these experiences. So we'll be covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So, this interview with Guy and Teal happened on Thursday, September 21st, 2017 at Kaleidoscope's First Look Market in Los Angeles, California. So, with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:34.685] Guy Shelmerdine: Hi, my name is Guy Shelmadine. I'm the founder of Dark Corner Studios. We create dark, thrilling experiences in virtual reality.
[00:01:45.527] Teal Greyhavens: And I'm Teal Greyhavens, the head of content for Dark Corner.
[00:01:50.434] Kent Bye: Great, so maybe you could talk about your entry point into virtual reality and your first piece, Catatonic, and then where that went and then where that led you to today.
[00:02:00.782] Guy Shelmerdine: Yeah, so we created a film called Catatonic about three years ago and it was a five-minute journey through an insane asylum and we basically created it and toured it around all over the world and we found this hungry audience that were super inspired by what we were doing and that equally inspired us to create a company Dark Corner and you know, Catatonic, what was great, not only about what we created in VR was we also built these custom wheelchairs that had vibration devices built in that kind of shook the wheelchair as you went through the film and kind of gave you that extra haptic and that sensation of actually moving through a space.
[00:02:49.411] Kent Bye: It seems like that the horror genre when it comes to virtual reality is one of those genres that I think works particularly well in terms of like giving people a visceral experience. And so maybe you could talk about the reactions to the piece as well as like what what is happening for why do people want to have these experiences?
[00:03:08.682] Guy Shelmerdine: I think it's just human nature for people to want to have that excitement of being scared. You know, obviously being scared gives the audience a reaction where they even laugh sometimes. And I think it's just one of those thrilling things that you go through when you watch this kind of content. And I think that's what makes people want to come back time and time again. What we're doing, we're not just trying to make people jump and scare them, we're also trying to create interesting and engaging narrative that will also take them along a rollercoaster ride, so to speak, through the arc of the story. make people just have a really good VR experience because I think there's a lot of content out there that's quite boring and I think if you're actually going to be committed to putting on a headset and switching off the rest of the world, you better be engaged. So, you know, our goal is to really grab people's attention and hold them through the whole experience, whether it's 5, 7 minutes or 10 minutes long.
[00:04:12.133] Teal Greyhavens: Yeah, and I think that the genre space or the horror space within the sort of traditional 2D, the flatty community, just has this really enthusiastic fan base for this very specific type of content. And we love horror films and sci-fi, thrillers, all that kind of stuff in the traditional form. And the idea of Dark Corner is to bring that enthusiasm, to bring that sense of fun and sort of the community around this type of content to VR.
[00:04:40.348] Kent Bye: So yeah, maybe to take a step back to explain a little bit more about what you're doing, you're kind of curating a lot of these horror genre films into a standalone application that allows people to buy individual episodes or experiences for people to check out. So maybe you could talk about that journey for you, because I know that for a long time Catatonic was available and licensed for within. And then as that ran out, what led you to then kind of go on your own and roll your own application to be able to curate this content?
[00:05:10.788] Guy Shelmerdine: Yeah I think we were really fortunate to have the support of Within in terms of showcasing Catatonic for the period of time we did and I think when it was showcased what we found was it basically created fans and people that would film people's reactions at home. We have great joy in watching different aged people from 75-year-old ladies sitting on their lazy boys in middle America screaming at catatonic because their son or daughter has a headset and has shown them. You know, we find this, there's hundreds of these videos on YouTube and, you know, there's something about seeing somebody react to somebody else watching VR that's quite entertaining in its own right, especially horror, because it's, you know, when we do events or film festivals and show our work, we, you know, often get crowds of people that want to watch people scream or yell or get frightened or curl up in a ball and in a way the spectator part of VR is as entertaining as the actual content itself.
[00:06:20.890] Kent Bye: Yeah, and for me, I've personally been through a lot of VR experiences, and I feel like I have a certain amount of immunity to that. I'm just curious if you find that, if people, after they've seen enough of this content, whether or not the impact of that visceral tension can dissolve or go away as much, or if this is kind of like a... Since VR is so new, is this something that, like, as somebody's first experience is that they've never seen VR before and this is what they get thrown into, then it's gonna be that extreme peak experience of people screaming and yelling.
[00:06:52.952] Teal Greyhavens: Yeah, I think you're talking about just the question of the quality of the content, you know, at its base level. I mean, we never get tired of seeing great movies, even if they are of a similar style. And I think that we really believe that that's what VR needs above all else, you know, is for people to have a place they can go to that provides a consistent stream of similarly styled but very diverse cinematic experiences that I don't think you get tired of. I think that it can be continually engaging every time you tune in and people want that. People will keep coming back for that.
[00:07:29.453] Guy Shelmerdine: This week I happened to be tracking down some of these YouTube videos and trying to get basically waivers signed so we can actually use the reaction shots as part of our marketing campaign and I found myself on Monday chatting to a man in Illinois who basically filmed his mom watching Catatonic and I was talking to him and you know here I am an Englishman in Los Angeles talking to a man in the middle of nowhere who happens to have a Samsung Gear headset and he basically couldn't stop talking about how his mother, who I think is 70 something years old, is the biggest fan of Catatonic. She's watched it about 25 times and The reaction I saw on YouTube was amazing. I mean, she was yelling and everything, but apparently the first time she watched it, her reaction was even bigger. So, you know, the fact is she's come back and want to watch this piece of content time and time again. I mean, that's probably a rare case, but it's just fun and just basically gives us enthusiasm to want to carry on doing this kind of content.
[00:08:35.626] Kent Bye: So I have my partner who's playing different random games of Vive, showing her friends VR, and she's like, sisters, what's this? And they all got into it. And I heard people screaming upstairs. And then after the screaming, like a lot of laughter. And so I feel like there's this thing where if you're experiencing it by yourself, you may not even scream. But if you're with other people, there's this weird dynamic between having those peak moments of fear and then everybody laughing at that, which I found that's an interesting social component to that.
[00:09:06.113] Guy Shelmerdine: I also think there's something I think reactions also quite testament to your personality. I happen to be probably a little bit more reserved than some and you know if I'm watching something I you know I don't react too big. Whereas some people are larger in personality and and you see them get very vocal and you know really entertain a crowd if you know if they're surrounded by friends. So I think it is a very interesting dynamic in terms of what you're like as a human and what your personality is like and how you actually react to VR.
[00:09:40.808] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I had a chance a couple years ago to see the independent film, It Follows, which to me I felt like was starting to build a level of tension in that film where the idea is that there's something that is slowly creeping towards you and instead of a sudden jump scare, it's more of a slow creeping tension of being able to see something that other people can't see. And I was wondering whether or not that level of slow building of that same tension that I felt and that follows, how that translates into a VR experience. Because I feel like there's maybe different tropes for how the genre of horror, whether it's a jump scare or other ways of trying to build that tension. So I'm just curious to hear your thoughts in terms of like other ways of building tension beyond sort of like immediately cuts of things suddenly changing.
[00:10:31.025] Guy Shelmerdine: Yeah, well, I think obviously the build is a lot of it. Catatonic was successful in that, just kind of building, you know, making you feel a little uneasy and curious about what was around the next corner. That all helps, especially when you're trying to do a jump scare or something like that. But I think this week we're just putting the finishing touches to our new film, Night-Night, and we've been working on it for about nine months. It wasn't until this week when our composer Drajan from Q-Department and Mach 1 delivered the final mix with the Mach 1 technology that suddenly, it wasn't until that moment that I got really excited about the project because I think sound is everything. you know especially with horror and you know as creepy or crazy you make the visuals and the sounds and what you do with that in terms of music sound effects you know that really can create more of an emotion from a human being and you know really I really do think with VR I mean we're fortunate with VR which is different to television that you get to wear headphones and good headphones so you can be fully emerged in the sound bath but you know I really feel like sound is equally as important as the visual when it comes to virtual reality and especially horror.
[00:11:42.675] Teal Greyhavens: Yeah just to add to that that I think that you know if you're talking about It Follows or you know any number of other films that sort of really suck you in I mean part of the reason you're drawn in is because of the story that sort of lays the groundwork so that you feel like there's something that you're participating in that your characters that you fear for And VR is sort of interesting because right now, you know, we're focusing on sort of short-form storytelling, which in a way is a challenge, but I think that it is 100% possible to, in the span of 5 minutes or 10 minutes, to sort of create this atmosphere of tension that is drawing people in. And in the case of devices that are unique to VR, like POV, you really can create the feeling of being in peril, being, you know, part of a story where there's something lurking, or there's a threat, or there's something that might, you know, come out of the closet at you. And that territory is really open and pretty exciting, and obviously we're playing with it in lots of different ways, but there's a lot of untapped territory there that we're excited to play around with.
[00:12:45.882] Kent Bye: And I had a chance to see one of your installation exhibits of Mule, which is actually sitting inside of a coffin at VR on the Lot last year, which is essentially like this process of what it feels like to die, I guess, in that journey. And so I'm curious to hear your creative process around both the creative direction of what you were trying to do with Mule, but also the surrounding installation piece of that.
[00:13:12.778] Guy Shelmerdine: Yeah, I think a lot of filmmakers need to make a statement in terms of what their narrative or story is and I think we're coming from our work in a slightly different way in terms of there's ideas that we're trying to explore but there's also techniques that we want to explore. I think VR is so new that we are constantly trying to up ourselves and do different things in terms of how to approach a project in terms of technique. So, for example, the one thing that VR can do that traditional filmmaking you can't do is really put someone in the POV of a actor, protagonist, antagonist, or whatever. And I think that's what we did with Catatonic, where we really wanted to be somebody. And the problem was you couldn't actually be somebody walking along, because if you did that, you'd make someone throw up. So that's why we backed that whole idea into being in a wheelchair. And then from that we made M.U.L.E. which was, okay, we want to do something lying down. And we also wanted to tell the story of this drug M.U.L.E. and we liked the idea of exploring death in VR. And so it was those discussions that kind of birthed that concept of M.U.L.E. and I think you know, with our new film, Night-Night, again, it's a POV experience, it's lying down, but we're exploring the idea of what a nightmare, what it was like to have a nightmare as a young boy, and that this particular story was born out of a nightmare that I had reoccurring as a child. But at the same time, we really wanted to explore movement in POV, moving from one environment to the next, and those kind of techniques. So it's, I think, a combination of those thoughts and concepts that come together and make, you know, one of our films.
[00:14:53.252] Kent Bye: So one thing that came up when I was watching this piece of Night Night was the visceral nature of some of the imagery that I'm seeing. It feels like, yeah, this could be an image from one of my nightmares, or maybe me seeing this image will sort of cause me to have nightmares. But as a creator and using these new immersive technologies, I feel like there's this unknown threshold of when you've gone too far and when you've gone into the realm of doing something that may be potentially triggering somebody's trauma. And so as you're navigating the field of horror genre, I think this comes up particularly in this because you are kind of pushing that edge of that boundary of trying to give someone a visceral experience. But I'm just curious if you've heard anybody that has had like a really negative reaction or something that they've had personal experiences that it's too much or too intense, or if it kind of puts them into this hypervigilant triggered state of trauma.
[00:15:47.800] Guy Shelmerdine: Not at all, really. I mean, there has been a couple of people and all the hundreds of people, thousands of people that we've shown over the last few years who have taken the headset off because they didn't want to go through it. And I think you always have that option. So if it's something you don't want to experience, you can take it off. But generally, people are quite entertained and, you know, think the work is great. But, you know, so to answer that question, not really, no.
[00:16:11.687] Teal Greyhavens: We were at a film festival earlier this year showing Mule and there was a man who was watching it who was having such an intense reaction, actually sort of screaming, that a crowd formed and some of the people in the audience actually became concerned like, you know, is he okay? Is he having a bad time right now? and he took the headset off and was just grinning and wanted to take a selfie with me because I was part of the film and had just had like the best time of his life. So I think that that's the bizarre and wonderful nature of horror and of these sort of fear-based experiences that people like to go to that place to experience that thrill and then come back. It's a blast.
[00:16:52.217] Guy Shelmerdine: But I think also with horror, there's lots of different types of horror. You know, we're not here making the goriest work out there. You know, we're not. That's not we're not. We're not about blood and and death and that. I mean, a little bit, but not, you know, not like some. There's some horror films out there that are just so gory. We're more a little bit more about suspense. And, you know, we are trying to create iconic imagery and in some places to scare you, but not in a disgusting way. You know,
[00:17:21.382] Kent Bye: I think that one variable here is the extent that someone feels like they're in control and I think because they can take the headset off at any moment that that perhaps gives them a level of agency such that even if their primal parts of their brain gets tricked into believing that they're there maybe their rational mind still feels like they're still safe enough to kind of continue on this journey or to even begin the journey because they know that at the end of the day they feel safe enough to have the experience.
[00:17:48.772] Guy Shelmerdine: Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. You know, we're called Dark Corner for a reason. We want to showcase the darkest experiences out there. But also, you know, there's regulations, you know, with all the platforms, and we're keeping on the right side of those. And so that, you know, obviously, there's no concern for any health issues or what have you.
[00:18:08.962] Teal Greyhavens: But that's a really good point that, you know, within the genre film community, I think if you ask anyone that's a fan of this kind of stuff, I think it is above all, it's fun. You know, these these types of experiences should be and are fun for the people that, you know, sort of flock to them. And that's what we're after. We're certainly not, you know, trying to make the the most hardcore experience or anything like that. We just want to give people a blast when they put on a headset, because that ultimately encourages adoption and so on and so forth, which is what we're all after.
[00:18:39.273] Kent Bye: And because you are exploring the dark corners and trying to give these people these experiences, I'm just curious to hear a little bit more about your own connection to the genre and like exploring the dark corners. Why?
[00:18:51.658] Guy Shelmerdine: Yeah, I think, listen, I think that, you know, being a filmmaker, I'm very much about throwing people into worlds, worlds that you don't get to go to, you know, on your normal day. And I think Flexing our creative muscles in genre was something that I kind of never expected I would do, to be honest. My background is more in comedy, but I had such fun making Catatonic and creating imagery and characters that you would never normally get to do in the sort of comedy space. Thinking about narrative and timing is similar in respect to comedy and horror. Horror is all about timing, as is comedy. And I think I get to do that in this space. But I also get to create people and dress actors up or create them in new ways, ways that haven't been explored before. And I think that's really exciting.
[00:19:47.468] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:19:55.787] Guy Shelmerdine: Well, I think, ultimately, the goal would be to make our lives better, really. And I think right now, we feel like we're making people's lives better by entertaining them and giving them a good time. And I think, ultimately, that would be the goal for everybody. Whether you're in medical VR, interactive VR, whatever sub-VR worlds there are out there, I think it's all about making the world a better place and making your life a better place.
[00:20:24.936] Kent Bye: Any other final thoughts?
[00:20:26.357] Teal Greyhavens: I don't think I could say it better than that. Awesome.
[00:20:29.037] Kent Bye: Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks. So that was Guy Chalmardin and Teal Greyhavens of Dark Corner Studios. And they have their new application, Dark Corner, which is now available. So I have a number of different takeaways about this interview is that, first of all, in looking at the evolution of virtual reality as a medium, I think it's actually the horror genre and the horror experiences that end up going viral. People have this visceral experience and then they inherently want to share it with other people. A lot of these people have never been in VR for the first time and so they have this double dose of having a very intense experience but also experiencing the medium of virtual reality for the first time. They have these wild reactions that get filmed and then they're shared on social media. People see those reactions and they want to have that experience as well. So there's something about using something like VR as a medium in order to face your fears, to explore issues of death and mortality, but to also start to go into these somewhat dystopian nightmare scenarios that is able to allow your psyche to kind of work different stuff out. Now for some people, they're just like, nope, no thanks, I don't want to have that experience at all. But for other people, they get this really cathartic, safe context for them to be able to explore these different visceral emotions. So there's an entire enthusiastic community of people who just love to experience these different experiences and to have their body be put into this type of physiological state. And to me, my biggest concern about this is that we don't necessarily know if there's a threshold that you can cross that you go too far to have an experience that is actually too intense. And what is the obligation for each VR creator to be able to put in what is essentially content warnings or trigger warnings or rating systems so that if people do have a trauma that's super intense and they're thrown into one of these experiences without full consent as to what is about to happen, then that could stimulate their nervous system in a way that actually is too far and too intense for them to really handle. And so I think there has to be a certain amount of trauma awareness and what is the ethical responsibilities of this. And I think that probably it's likely that both Guy and Teal, as they're showing these experiences, it's in these public contexts and the full context of that is just known. But if you are showing someone VR for the first time and you don't necessarily disclose what people are going to be getting into, then that I think is where that unknown ethical line of that threshold that where you can start to go too far with experiences like this. The other big thing about this experience that I think is really fascinating is the fact that they're doing this self-distribution approach where this could actually be a very niche community that has people that are willing to buy these experiences and to experience them themselves, but also to share with other people to then like capture their reactions and then to share them virally. I think that there's a huge part of that's how a lot of the early days of virtual reality really taking off, especially with a lot of the roller coaster types of experiences. But these experiences where you're exploring your fears and going into these scary contexts in these environments, then it's a type of experience that people love to have, especially, you know, in this time of year with Halloween. And finally, I just wanted to take a step back and look at overall, I think there's people who create both horror experiences and sci-fi experiences. There's a tendency to go into these creations of these dystopian futures. And what does it mean for us to be constantly creating visions of the future that are completely dystopian? And I think these are larger questions in terms of like the power of virtual reality, of what it can do. And I think this also points out the difference between experiential design and narrative design. I think that, you know, from a narrative design perspective, it's easy to go into conflict and drama and have things kind of really go bad. But part of the power of virtuality is that the opposite of this horror and fear is to put us into these deeply meditative states where we're able to create environments that are able to allow us to have a positive vision of what's possible of the future. It's that utopian aspect that I think that in the genre of sci-fi that is tended towards this dystopian future. So I'm somewhat hesitant to say, yeah, yeah, this is like an awesome potential for virtual reality for us to go explore these nightmare scenarios that are going to be embedded within the depths of your psyche and give you nightmares. I think that there's potential consequences to that that I just want to say, okay, we don't fully know the full implications of that, and this is one potential for how we're going to use this medium. I'm personally very interested in the utopian aspects, but I think that there's also a clear function for horror and a clear function for having these types of experiences, even though I choose to not necessarily have them a lot. The ones that I have had were ones that I just remember a lot. One, for example, is Sisters, and just the chills in my spine that I had having that experience just showed me the power of these horror experiences. So even if you're not somebody who is wanting to go and to have these experiences within virtual reality, it's really kind of maybe pushing your limits, then there's also other people who this may be the exact thing that they want, and it actually may be the exact thing that they need in order to, like, really have the types of entertainment experiences that they want to. So, that's all that I have for today, and I just wanted to thank you for listening to the Wizards of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member to the Patreon. This is a listener-supported podcast, and I rely upon your gracious donations to continue to do this type of coverage. So if you want to support that and see more of that, then please become a member today at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. Thanks for listening.